GSA Global provides OSINT and digital footprint investigation services using publicly and lawfully available information to support corporate investigations, due diligence, fraud enquiries and other sensitive matters.
Relevant information may exist across corporate records, websites, social media, online identities, historic content and other public sources. The challenge is not simply finding information, but establishing whether it relates to the correct person or organisation, assessing its reliability, understanding its context and determining how much confidence should be placed in it.
Our open-source investigations apply structured research, validation and analysis to turn publicly available information into assessed investigative findings. The work is led by GSA Global’s open-source investigation capability and is reported with clear sourcing, analytical confidence and limitations so that it can be considered alongside other available evidence.
What is an OSINT Investigation?
Open-source intelligence (OSINT) is investigation using information that is publicly and lawfully available: corporate registries and filings, court and insolvency records, media archives, websites and their histories, social media content and imagery. An OSINT investigation is not a search-engine session at scale. It is a structured intelligence process: defining the question, identifying the sources capable of answering it, collecting systematically, validating each finding against others, and reporting what the evidence supports with its gaps and uncertainties stated.
Two boundaries define the practice. GSA does not access private accounts or use unlawfully obtained information; the permitted methods and sources are agreed according to the purpose, applicable law and ethical requirements of the assignment. And we do not overstate attribution: connecting an online identity to a real person is often possible, but the strength of that connection varies, and our reports grade it honestly.
Evidential Capture and Reporting
Open-source findings are only useful if they can be relied on later, when the content may have changed or vanished. Material items are captured with their source and context, dated at the point of capture, and preserved in a form that shows what was found, where and when. Reports state analytical confidence for each finding, established fact, corroborated finding, single-source indication or unresolved possibility, together with alternative explanations where the evidence supports more than one reading, and evidential limits. Whether particular material is admissible in proceedings is a legal question for the client’s advisers; our role is capture and documentation careful enough to support that assessment.
Lawful and Proportionate Investigations
Open-source does not mean anything goes. Every assignment has a defined, legitimate purpose agreed at the outset; enquiries are limited to what that purpose requires; privacy and data-protection obligations shape both collection and reporting; and methods are chosen because they are necessary and proportionate to the question. We decline instructions that lack a legitimate purpose, and we tell clients when the proportionate answer is a narrower scope than they asked for.
Our OSINT Specialists
Ellen Davies, Lead Open-Source Investigator, is the principal expert for this service; her expertise includes individual and corporate due diligence, asset tracing, network analysis and geolocation, developed across UK Government and legal-sector casework. Where a matter requires more than open-source work, the wider firm supports: David Wood for senior oversight on complex or sensitive matters, Howard Nichol where hostile actors or counterintelligence context are in play, and the cyber team where the question moves beyond open-source research into technical systems.
Our OSINT and Digital Footprint Investigations Capabilities
